


Not a Lot For You to Give

by moshi



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Asexuality, Coffee Shops, Drinking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 12:39:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5456807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moshi/pseuds/moshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall tries again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Lot For You to Give

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oh_mothertrucker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_mothertrucker/gifts).



Niall was in a rush. He needed to be at the animal shelter ten minutes ago, but he had promised that he’d bring the girl who sits at the front desk a coffee and the thought of showing up without one made him more anxious than being late. For whatever reason, though, every coffee shop he passed on his way was closed - some cosmic joke that today of all days all of the coffee shops would have moved or been closed for renovation or just gone, whatever. He went a block out of his way looking for this volunteer-run, donations-based coffee shop, a place he had heard of but never bothered going to since it wasn’t on his route.

He turned the corner and stopped. It looked like a row of old houses; there wasn’t anything to indicate there were any businesses on this street at all. The sun was glaring down the street at him, making it feel hotter than it actually was that morning. Niall walked forward, grimacing and mad at himself that he went this far out of his way for nothing. At the very least he could have showed up on time, even if he were empty-handed. There was a pang in his stomach at that thought. He hated breaking promises.

Nearly midway down the street, a small house that looked smashed in between two tenement buildings sat a bit back from the street. There must have been a lawn, at one point, but now it was dead and littered with metal scraps and cinder blocks. It looked like a front porch had been removed - probably the reason it looked so far away from the street. It left an awkward, short set of stairs up to a front door and everything nearly flush with the walls and the two grimy windows facing out. Helpfully emblazoned above all of this was a large, ragged, cloth sign that said “CⒶFFEE” with an anarchy symbol in place of the O. Niall scratched his head and took a deep breath. His anxiety was mostly replaced with worry.

He took the short steps up and pushed open the door and then stood just inside the doorframe: the interior of the house was…cozy. There was a small foyer with two café tables, two chairs at each. Niall stood in between two entryways, one into a small sitting room and the other into a larger living room. It was an old floor plan, fitting for what was apparently such an old house.

“Hey! Close the fucking door!” A voice yelled from a distant room.

Niall looked behind him and then moved quickly back to the door to shut it. He wasn’t used to businesses with doors that didn’t close themselves. Or businesses in houses at all.

He went through the larger living room first, hoping to find something like a counter where he could order some drinks. There were two couches in front of the entrance, positioned facing each other and shoved closed to a small coffee table in between them: most people probably climbed on the armrest to get onto the couch. The one facing out into the room was shoved against a wall and blocked what looked like a fireplace; at this point, in this neighborhood, it’d probably be a fire hazard to use it. The rest of the room was filled with café tables and mismatched chairs, haphazardly arranged so Niall had to walk through a veritable maze to get to the doorframe (that was conspicuously missing a door) at the back.

Most of the tables were occupied: everyone had that same anachronistic look, like how punks were portrayed in the 70s…or, maybe, in the 90s, when they looked a little tired. Wasn’t punk just a style now? Did it mean anything? Niall didn’t really care about it, it was always too rough for him: there were better ways to lobby for change, especially politically, and there were just bigger issues. He loved the idea of this donations-based café, but where was the community outreach? The area couldn't only have been populated by punks. Did they work with the homeless? Were there overnight beds funded by the donations? What did they even do with the profits, aside from maintaining the shop?

Two men tucked into a table at the far corner, beside the couches, starting talking over each other with increasingly louder voices. They didn’t look like the rest of the people in the house: they were younger, and they weren’t wearing any leather. One man had long hair with one side casually pushed behind his ear. Strands fell out and hung in front of his face. He had a lightweight sweater on, black, and black jeans that were skintight. Niall wore skinny jeans, but those looked like they had to be uncomfortable. The other man had hair that was more reminiscent of the early 2000s emo scene, but it didn’t look out of place on him. He had an oversized Adidas sweatshirt on, and blue jeans cuffed above simple, black Adidas sneakers. Niall stared at them for a moment, perplexed by how they looked and the rising fervency of their argument about, as far as he could tell, property. They were yelling that word a lot.

A man walked quickly out of the door to the back, where Niall heard some dishes clanging and water running now that he was closer to the doorframe. He shoved around Niall without saying anything, not even looking at him, and placed two petite espresso cups and saucers in front of a man and a woman who looked like they had participated in every major protest around the world since the 1970s.

“Lou! Harry! Stop fucking shouting! This isn’t town hall!” The man who delivered the espresso yelled at the two men arguing in the corner.

“Fuck off, Liam!” The one in the Adidas sweater said, and flipped him off.

The other - Harry - smiled and rolled his eyes. Suddenly, Liam was standing intimidatingly close to Niall, who felt very uncomfortable with his personal space being violated.

“You look lost.”

Niall tried to back up, but only bumped into an empty chair. Liam’s hair was sculpted into a small faux hawk and he had tattoos covering his forearms, which Niall didn’t get a chance to really look at. He had on a fitted, black tank top and jeans that looked severely worn in: they hardly fit him, sagging and barely being held up by his hips, with a huge hole blown out in the left knee. His jeans fell messily over short work boots. He had an apron on top of all of that, smeared with coffee grounds. Liam politely placed a hand on Niall’s shoulder so he could carefully slide between him and the table and chair blocking the doorway to the back.

“If you want coffee or something, it’s in the kitchen.” Liam said without looking back.

Niall was stunned and then felt his cheeks blossom pink: he felt so acutely out-of-place here. Everyone was probably staring at him, but Niall couldn’t bring himself to look around. He just wanted to get coffee and get out. He was wrong: there’s nothing to worry about here, just the judgments of a room full of people. His anxiety came roaring back.

He steeled himself and stepped around the table in front of him to get to the kitchen in the back. When he crossed the doorframe, there was vastly more noise than he could hear outside. There were three people in the back, one washing dishes in a sink, Liam cleaning an old, beaten up espresso machine, and the third sitting on a stool in the far corner smoking a joint. The man washing dishes looked up and smiled; the only smile Niall had gotten there. He had a tattoo snaking up his neck from his back, too, that became more apparent when he twisted his head to nod at Liam standing at the espresso machine.

“Let him know what you want. He’ll bring it out to you.”

Liam kept wiping down the machine, but he craned his head to look at Niall. He looked entirely disinterested.

“I…just need coffee. Two coffees. To go,” Niall stammered out.

“Yeah…” Liam turned around. “What kind of coffee?”

“Oh.” The flush was coming back on Niall’s cheeks. “Just…like, brewed coffee is fine.”

“We don’t have that.” Liam turned back around.

The man sitting on a stool in the back was sketching on a pad of paper, the joint loosely hanging from his lips. He balled up a piece of scrap paper and threw the wad at Liam, hitting him squarely in the head. Liam looked annoyed.

“Don’t be a dick, man.”

Liam sighed and turned back around.

“All we have is espresso.” He gestured at the machine behind him. “We’re trying to get, like, one those big brewing things, but they’re expensive as fuck…” He smiled a little bit at the ground. “You want a latte or something? Or an americano? If you just wanted brewed coffee that’s as close as we can get.”

“Oh, sure. Yeah, a latte and an americano, then.” Niall leaned on the doorframe. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

Liam had turned around to start making the drinks. After a moment, he looked back and saw Niall still standing there.

“You can wait outside. I’ll bring it to you, okay?”

“Oh -“ Niall shuffled out of the doorway to the kitchen.

He sat at a small, square table just to the left of the doorframe that had one chair and barely enough room to sit at without blocking the entrance to the kitchen. The two in the opposite corner - Lou and Harry - were still in a heated discussion, but they had stopped yelling and were now doing something more like intense whispering back and forth. The couple at the table who received the espressos had already finished them and pushed their cups and saucers to the side of the table. They were holding hands and talking quietly across the table.

 _Anarchy in love,_ Niall thought. He immediately felt like an idiot for thinking that.

He was able to gradually relax, sitting there in the relative quiet. Sitting near the kitchen was warmer than the rest of the house; Niall assumed they didn’t turn on the heat if they weren’t making much money (if they were even paying rent for the space, that was). The kitchen was calming in a way, too, with the sound of water running, quiet indistinguishable conversations, and the occasional blast of sound from the espresso machine. Two cups were set down in front of Niall and broke his thought process. He looked up and smiled at Liam more out of habit than any sense of obligation.

“How much do I owe you?”

Liam shifted uncomfortably. “It’s an honor system. We live and die by donations, so…whatever you can afford.”

Niall nodded and pulled out his wallet.

“Is ten dollars okay?”

Liam swiped it before saying anything. “Whatever you can afford, man. Thanks.”

“Right, thank -“ Niall started to say, but Liam went back into the kitchen. “Okay.”

Niall picked up his coffees and walked back through the maze of tables to the front door. He managed to close the door behind him and walk down the few steep steps, getting a few steps in front of the house, before he heard the door opened again. When he turned to look, Liam was bounding down the short staircase and walked right up to Niall, pushing his way into his space again. Niall took a step back.

“You, uh…” Liam started.

He had taken off his apron before running out, maybe in some dutiful way not to dirty his work item unnecessarily. He seemed like he would be honor-bound like that, like the payment system at the shop.

“You should come back.” Liam finally said, concisely.

Niall was shocked for a second. “Really?”

“What, you don’t like my coffee?”

Liam had a smirk on his face that was…alarmingly attractive. His whole mood shifted and Niall was caught off-guard. Wasn’t this the gruff barista who treated him like some intruder? A blush was creeping up Niall’s neck that couldn’t be attributed to the hot drinks in his hands.

“Yeah, okay.”

Niall seemed to say it against his will, it escaping out with an exhale. He was surprised by his body’s sleight.

“Cool.”

Liam was grinning and, as he walked back inside, Niall burned his tongue taking a thoughtless sip from his americano.

 

“Who was that?” Louis asked when Liam came back into the house.

“Some one…I don’t know,” Liam said, ducking his head.

He walked past them into the kitchen, missing the face Louis made at his back. Louis and Harry followed him past the doorway anyway, ruining any hope Liam had of escaping their scrutiny.

“Did…you just chase after that guy?” Zayn asked.

Louis spotted the joint Zayn was about to light and joined him at the back of the kitchen; he shared his weed wordlessly, expectantly. Liam was bright red.

“No! I just…”

“Uh-huh. Payno, you’re not exactly subtle.” Louis said around inhales, “Like, that’s not a strong suit of yours.”

Harry was grinning at him, beaming like some mother watching her son get on the bus for elementary school for the first time. He could hardly contain his excitement and Liam was afraid of whatever was bubbling up in his head. They were all staring at him, waiting on him to tell them all about this guy, but he didn’t know what to say. Liam just hoped he’d be back.

  

Niall did go back. It became a part of his routine and he undoubtedly spent more money buying coffee than his budget allowed. He left earlier so he could linger after he got his to-go cup. Most mornings it was the usual cast of characters, the same ones he saw that first time he went, but he got to know Lou - full name Louis - and Harry and Zayn, the one who was smoking a joint at the back of kitchen, better each time he went back to the shop. They were all friends of Liam, a tight-knit group that found each other in high school, stayed together through university, and then, well, they couldn’t seem to separate themselves. Harry was in graduate school for philosophy, which his boyfriend Louis made fun of him for. School didn’t suit Louis, but arguing with Harry - with anyone, really - did, so when he wasn’t working as a cashier at the nearby Aldi, he was here working through Harry’s assigned critiques of classics like Descartes or Locke or, if Louis were really lucky, Proudhon. He hated Marx and wouldn’t even humor Harry with an argument. If they weren’t debating the merits of Rousseau then they were probably working through Harry’s thesis, which Niall didn’t even bother trying to understand.

Zayn wasn’t around that much. Niall didn't see him nearly as often as the others, but rumors abounded. He had a girlfriend, then they were engaged - or they had never been engaged, depending on who you were asking - but then they broke up, broke it off. Some said he moved, he started a career or sold out (which Niall didn’t get - didn’t he have to make a living? Wasn’t, like, surviving the first part? What could he do if he couldn’t even support himself?), but mostly no one actually honestly knew. He came and went as he pleased.

Liam had opened the coffee shop, simply called CⒶFFEE (although everyone made fun of the sign by pronouncing the first syllable like the first syllable in “castle”) Despite the the ultra-serious, take-no-shit attitude he would put on while he worked, he just wanted to help people. He wanted to give people a space to stop for a minute and figure out their lives and he had worked at a Starbucks in high school, so making espresso was about all he knew how to do at that point. It was simple for him: Niall had stopped trying to push him to explain the social good of it all and he got tired of Louis tearing apart what he called his “peace-for-everyone, love-rules-all, socialist bullshit” after the first time it happened. The three of them seemed like they had encouraged him, too, to make something good or something that was fulfilling for him. Liam seemed more than happy doing it if for any reason because it kept him close to his boys.

It had been weeks since Niall first met Liam and, by that point, he was stopping in nearly every day, whether it was in the morning or the evening. It was easy, too: all of them, Liam and Harry and Zayn and Louis, had folded him in so easily and Niall grew fonder of them each time he hung out with them. Liam, especially, seemed warmer and warmer the more he got to know him; he seemed more and more like someone Niall would want to keep getting to know.

 

“So you work at an animal shelter?” Liam asked.

“Well - no, I mean, I volunteer in my spare time. I work as a manager for this community gallery. Mostly it’s just kids…it’s sad, actually. A lot of the time it’s some, like, charity auction to raise money for a cancer group that helps buy toys or something for kids with terminal cancer.” Niall shifted the bottle he was holding from one hand to the other. “It fucking sucks a lot of the time, when I think about it too much.”

They were at a party at an abandoned warehouse down the road from CⒶFFEE. The sun was nearly set, but people brought a smattering of light sources: camping lanterns, tons of candles, someone started a fire with old pallets found around the warehouse and street. They were sitting on some discarded steel beams a ways back from the fire.

“But yeah, so that’s why I go to the animal shelter. It’s a lot happier.”

“Don’t they kill dogs and shit there?”

“Oh! No, this is a no-kill shelter.” Niall laughed, “God, _that_ would be fucking depressing. First I try and sell these finger paintings by dying kids only to go somewhere where dogs are getting killed? No thank you!”

“PAYNO!” Someone yelled into the sprawling, empty warehouse.

“I guess Louis’s here.”

Liam put his beer bottle onto the ground and walked across the open space toward the door. He was wearing more fitted jeans with no holes, a thick cable knit sweater, and a leather jacket on top of that. He wore the same work boots everywhere. Niall was bundled up, feeling colder now that autumn seemed to finally be slipping into winter. He brought out a heavy wool coat and a scarf, but still couldn’t manage to keep any warmth. He walked closer to the fire while Liam brought Louis in.

While he warmed his hands on the pallet fire ( _probably not too healthy,_ Niall thought), he wished Liam were beside him; Liam seems to radiate heat and acts like no chill ever affects him. _Maybe that’s why the coffee shop is so cold,_ Niall thought, _because Liam’s just impervious to it._ He was smirking a little at that thought, like Liam were Iceman or something, some superhero hiding undercover for a little bit, or waiting for the next bad guy to show up.

Niall heard Liam and Louis more clearly as they walked up to the fire.

“Harry’ll be here in a second, he wanted to get more shit,” Louis said dismissively.

“Oh god, not more mushrooms. Don’t tell me he’s -“

“No! Booze, god, Liam, you are so fucking square sometimes. You’re worse than those straight edge assholes -”

“You mean you?” Liam was sticking his tongue out at Louis, “If I remember, you didn’t even use to drink…you hardly even use to swear, if I can just manage to recall…”

“Fuck off, Payno.” Louis said, flipping him off.

Louis pulled a flask out of the denim jacket he wore over a pullover hoodie. He had on joggers with thick socks pulled over the elastic at the bottom, all shoved into the high-top Adidas trainers. He stood a little closer to the fire than everyone else and took a drink from his flask, somehow making the whole act look self-righteous. Liam stood behind Niall and placed his hands on Niall’s shoulders, then rubbed his arms up and down.

“You seemed cold.”

“Yeah, a bit. Thanks.” Niall drank down the rest of his beer and tossed the bottle beside the fire.

“I’m glad you came out tonight,” He shuffled over to be beside Niall and spoke a little softer, closer to Niall, who was shivering but not from the cold. “I wasn’t sure if you would. Didn’t know if, like…this was your scene. Or whatever.”

Niall almost starting explaining that, well, it was Liam - he came because Liam invited him and what else was he doing, really? It was just a party…before Niall opened his mouth he realized it: he had fallen for Liam Payne, the sensitive barista who puts on a bad boy persona to fit in with his punk friends. Just then, there was a crash by the door and Niall heard someone say, what sounded like “owww.”

“Harry you fucking klutz…” Louis said, walking quickly to the door.

He was helping Harry up, asking if he was alright dismissively and, “more importantly, is the booze alright?” Harry put on a hurt face, but he was fine and he knew, behind Louis’s jabs, was care.

“Still cold?” Liam asked, facing Niall.

“Well, yeah. Thanks for that, though. I feel better.”

“Let’s do a shot. That’ll for sure warm you up.”

Liam flashed an impossible smile and Niall was weak for it. He agreed that a shot would probably be the last little bit he’d need to feel warmed up. They met up with Harry and Louis near a mass of candles someone left by the entrance

“Okay, I’ve got rum. And, uh…tequila.” The others waited for Harry to continue listing the spirits he brought. “Oh no. That’s it.” He put his hands up, “Sorry, that’s all I could get?”

“Oh, Harold. Sometimes…” Louis was shaking his head, “Well, let’s not tell anyone else then, I guess.”

“Get your shots in now…” Liam said, grabbing the bottle of tequila. He turned to Niall, “No salt or lime, but?” He shrugged.

“I don’t really care at this point. I’m getting cold away from that fire.” Niall smiled sheepishly at Liam.

Harry pulled out a small pack of red Solo cups and gave two of them to Liam.

“Bottoms up, then.”

 

The party was much easier, then; Niall was much warmer and Liam was much closer after the initial shot and the two that followed later. They had pulled two smaller beams closer to the fire and sat side-by-side. Harry and Louis milled around talking with everyone, talking with each other, talking to Niall and Liam. The night went on and they “fucked off to fuck,” as Louis elegantly announced to everyone. Liam rolled his eyes.

“They’re very open about their sex life.” He chuckled and shook his head.

Once they were well out-of-sight, Liam touched the top of Niall’s hand and then stroked down his knuckle to his wrist, tracing the tendons. Niall flipped his hand over and Liam did the same on the inside of his hand. Niall tried not to recoil or laugh from the tickle.

“Think you’re really…cute,” Liam said under his breath.

Niall felt relaxed and very comfortable being increasingly closer to Liam.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you, Mr. Payne.”

“Fuck off, I’m not saying it again!”

Liam was smiling and he pushed his palm onto Niall’s, threading his fingers through Niall’s and wrapping around his knuckles. Niall squeezed back.

“Hey, do you think our mouths taste like tequila?” Niall asked after a moment.

“I don’t know. Why? Are you tasting it?”

“No, just…like, I was wondering, I guess, what your mouth tastes like.”

Niall looked up at the ceiling, impossible to see with how little light they had, and tried to hold back a grin.

“Very smooth, Mr. Horan.”

Liam let go of Niall’s hand and stood up. He walked in front of Niall and leaned forward, taking over Niall’s view. He leaned down and pecked Niall on the lips with his, like he was asking for permission or trying to type in a password with his face. Niall parted his lips and breathed out through his mouth - Liam kissed him again and again and then tested his tongue on Niall’s lips. Niall tested back, and then they were kissing fully and completely, giving in to what they had been waiting on all night; carelessly taking their fill of one another, feeling a fake kind of higher sensitivity with the buzz they had.

All of sudden, Niall stopped and then his hands were grabbing at Liam’s shirt. Liam must have thought Niall was dragging him closer by the look he had on his face, but then his expression faltered and Niall was instead dragging him backward as he fell off of the beam. He landed on his back with a thud and Liam fell on top of him.

“That…wasn’t as smooth as I had planned it.” Liam said with a laugh.

“Don’t be so pushy?” Niall joked.

His breath was nearly knocked out of him and Liam’s full weight was pushing down on his chest. It was nice, but not how Niall had wanted that kind of intimacy to come up. Liam pushed up with his hands and moved his legs off of Niall’s. He kissed his check and then lowered himself down near Niall’s ear.

“You know, my place isn’t far from here and I promise it’s way more comfortable than this floor.”

A flare shot up through the fog in Niall’s brain, maybe a kind of warning or some sort of color-coded message his mind tried to signal. He couldn’t think about it, though, couldn’t concentrate on it: Liam was so close and felt really good…strong and stable and _there,_ just right there. He didn’t want this moment to end.

“Yeah.” Niall breathed out.

 

Niall quickly realized “not far from here” meant CⒶFFEE: Liam had converted the basement into a studio apartment.

“One of Zayn’s friend in university was pre-law - now he’s in law school - and he helped me figure out everything with the coffee shop.” Liam narrated the history proudly on their walk back to his place. “It’s way too complicated for me to figure out, but it’s registered as a non-profit and, since I live there, I get crazy tax benefits -“ Liam looked stricken, “Don’t tell Louis I pay taxes!”

Niall laughed. “Liam - wait, what’s your middle name?”

“James.” Liam smiled at Niall.

“Liam James Payne: secret capitalist. Wait till everyone hears about this…”

“No! I’ll be ruined!” Liam stopped and fell to his knees, fake-begging Niall not to tell.

“Come on! I’m freezing…”

Niall hoisted Liam up, who wrapped his arm around Niall’s shoulder. They walked in step back to CⒶFFEE.

 

Liam’s basement was warm, surprisingly. The three space heaters he had set up blanketed the room and the thickness of the basement kept in all of the heat. Liam fell onto his bed, pulled Niall on top of him, and kissed him languidly, pulling his body in toward him. They peeled off coats and scarves and kicked off shoes and boots, breathing close to one another and only pausing to kiss more. A thousand flares lit up the cloudiness of Niall’s head, a thousand warning shots that he should slow down, talk more. But Niall liked the intimacy and he wanted to feel close to someone for the first time in what felt like ages. Liam’s hand snaked up underneath Niall’s shirt and Niall gasped from how cold Liam’s fingers were still.

“Sorry,” Liam said mid-kiss, right into Niall’s mouth.

“S’okay,” Niall slurred.

Liam rocked his hips underneath Niall along with a sort of rhythm he had created kissing him. Another flare shot up, bright and clear, pushing through the fog: Niall knew his body betrayed him like this, that he couldn’t help how his body responded to attraction but his mind didn’t want it in the same way - Niall didn’t care for sex, but his body responded like he did.

He knew, too, that Liam didn’t feel the same way.

“I want to get you off.”

Liam had pushed Niall up, just enough to separate their kissing, with the hand he had underneath his shirt. Niall was finally warm and zoned out on kissing and feeling Liam - and wrangling with his inner monologue. Immediately his brain put up big, bulb lettering that blinked a giant, bright **NO** , like it was announcing a vaudeville cabaret act that was about to be brought onto stage to express exactly how Niall felt about it. He pulled down the curtain on that.

 _Maybe this time I do. Maybe this time will fine. Maybe I do want to._ Niall thought slowly.

He pushed forward, easily collapsing Liam’s hand, and kissed him.

“Yeah, okay.”

Liam bit his lip and tried not to smile and then pulled off his shirt. He was sturdily built, like he worked in construction - and Niall remembered his job working in the factory and then, undoubtedly, setting up the whole coffee shop and his apartment by himself and it made sense. Liam started to peel Niall’s shirt up and then Niall sat up, pulling it over his head himself. He got a slight chill without that extra layer, but it was subsumed when he fell back onto Liam. Liam undid Niall’s jeans, but Niall preempted the difficulty of taking off his pants when straddling Liam; he stood up beside the bed and slipped them off, a little self-conscious in the glow of the heaters and his bedside lamp. Liam slipped out of his jeans and then raised up onto his knees. He pulled Niall back onto the bed and switched places with him, easily hovering over him with one leg in between Niall’s and his hands to either side of his shoulders.

“You’re really sexy,” Liam said, matter-of-factly and staring at Niall.

“Okay, stop staring at me. Let’s -“

Niall turned his head to the side, looking at the old end table and matching, secondhand lamp on top of it.

“Right.”

Liam shifted and let one of his hands go toward their waists and cocks, gently kissing Niall’s cheek and neck until he turned his head again.

 _This is fine. This -_ Niall’s thoughts were interrupted when Liam wrapped his hand around Niall’s dick, slowly moving his hand up and down. _This is okay,_ Niall thought. He kissed Liam more fully.

It was okay: he loved kissing Liam and being kissed by Liam, he loved to feel the heat between their bodies; when Liam’s shoulder would dip down and graze Niall’s shoulder. Niall liked being able to do this with him. It felt close. He lost himself in it.

Niall could feel Liam moving his hips with his hand while he jacked him off and felt drops of precome hit his thigh - that or sweat and it wasn’t nearly hot enough for either of them to sweat that profusely. It brought him out of his daze, making out with Liam - he was losing rhythm and clearly trying to hold back an orgasm. Trying to wait on Niall. Niall took his hand from Liam’s back and found his own dick, replacing Liam’s hand with his own. Liam started jerking himself off and lost any control of his ability to kiss. Niall felt like he was being pulled further and further from this moment, like he was brushing off the last of the sleepiness in the morning after a hot shower; he felt his cock start to soften, just barely. Liam shifted and pushed himself up, more crouching over Niall, and moved his hand up and down his cock in long, fast strokes.

“Ohmygod - I…” Liam stuttered and then his body tensed with orgasm, sending stripes of cum onto Niall’s stomach.

 _Shit_ , Niall thought. He had been feeling his dick - slowly - losing its rigidity, becoming more flaccid. His thoughts sharpened suddenly and the dying flares of light came into focus, spelling out a message he should have heeded:

**THIS IS TOO FAR**

Liam was panting; he had fallen beside Niall and stroked himself absent-mindedly, kissing Niall’s ear in between his breaths. Niall swallowed and was hardly doing anything aside from resting his hand on his cock.

“You gonna come?” Liam asked quietly.

Niall’s breath caught and then exhaled a fast, short breath.

“Fuck. I…” Niall bit his lip, and then let out a single laugh, “I think it might be the booze.”

He stared straight at the ceiling, trying to make it believable - to walk the fine line between embarrassment and truth, honesty and deception.

Liam propped himself up on his elbow. “Oh shit, really?”

Niall felt relief wash over him and he took his hand off of his dick.

“…Yeah.”

Liam got up and fetched a towel from his bathroom and then very chivalrously cleaned up his cum from Niall’s stomach.

“Would it be okay if I stayed tonight?” Niall asked after Liam threw the towel in the wash.

“Yeah. I…thought you would,” Liam laughed, “Guess I should’ve asked first.”

He leaned over Niall again and kissed him lightly before laying back on his side and pulling Niall’s back against his stomach.

This, at least, felt comfortable to Niall. This felt right, finally, more like what he wanted. If only he felt less anxious about it all.

 

Niall awoke flushed with embarrassment as if his dreams weren’t just dreams but the cruelest reruns of the night before, and the worst outcomes of the future. He was wracked with a feedback loop of guilt, fearing he used Liam like he was some experiment: _do I still not care about sex? Am I really like this?_ He woke up feeling like he had ruined a relationship that hadn’t even started. He woke up with a hate weighing down on his chest, a demon that had hunted him for years finally finding him. It was unbearable, a kind of push away from humanity he hadn’t felt in a long time. That kind of stark reminder of uncomfortable conversations throughout high school, drunk on a parking block outside of a house party in college, holiday dinners with extended family: “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?” As if that was even the first issue. Niall realized it was easier just not to have any relationship - nothing close to anyone - because any time he did, it felt like a lie. Maybe there was some initial attraction, something about their personality that brought him in, or they were just cute and what did that even mean for Niall? It all ended with an awkward laugh and half-assed explanation, leaving people to ask again next year. So Niall stopped. It was just _easier._

It was probably early, but impossible to tell from Liam’s basement other than the fact that Niall had hardly slept at all. Liam rolled onto his back and Niall, resolving to escape and save them both the crushing disappointment, was spared from having to maneuver carefully around limbs to get out of bed. He dressed as quickly as he could without making sound and then walked up the stairs carrying his shoes. The door creaked a little, but by that point Niall wasn’t looking back. He knew he couldn’t face Liam and he was afraid that, if he had, Liam would know; he would’ve seen it on his face or heard it in his voice and he would have hated him for it. What could Niall have said?

He sat in a chair in the foyer and put his shoes back on. Another board creaked and Niall froze with panic and embarrassment, showing deeply scarlet on his face. He looked up and Zayn was there looking at him quizzically, which changed into prideful knowledge and then quickly back to quizzical. Niall was in the middle of tying his other shoe’s laces.

“Please don’t say anything to him,” Niall asked quietly, looking at the floor.

Zayn crossed the foyer toward the kitchen. “Whatever.”

 

Liam stretched, pushing his limbs out and covering the bed. He froze, though, realizing his bed was very empty, and rolled over to see that he was alone. His heart dropped, a stone thrown into a lake - a clean, quiet break in the surface and then nothing.

He found Zayn upstairs, sitting at a table with a small coffee and the morning’s paper.

“You didn’t see Niall, did you?” Liam asked, leaning against the entryway frame.

“No. He’s not here?” Zayn didn’t look up from the newspaper. “Must have left before I showed up.”

Liam ambled past him into the kitchen and saw the dishes from yesterday; they would need to be done before the café opened.

“You didn’t make me any?” Liam called back.

He went through the motions automatically, so used to working the espresso machine. Zayn had left the grounds he used in the portafilter, but Liam worked through it without a second thought, as if he had been making espresso all morning.

He came back with an espresso cup and sat across from Zayn.

“Do you think he’s that kind of guy?” He asked, resting his head on his hand and elbow on the table, looking tired.

“What kind of guy?” Zayn asked distractedly.

“Like…” Liam knew what he meant, but he didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to believe it. He wanted a chance with Niall. “Never mind. You really didn’t see him this morning?”

“Nope.” Zayn said.

  

Niall didn’t go back. He went back to his old route and routines. Liam sent him a string of texts, called a few times, and then one last fiery text saying things he probably didn’t mean. Niall ignored them all. It was easier, wasn’t it, for both of them? If, in the end, Niall just disappeared. Wouldn’t it be easier for Liam if it were as if Niall never existed? The crush of disappointment in himself was enough for Niall and he hadn’t even been lied to - that consumed him the most: someone he liked so much, something he could be so good at, he ruined before they even had a chance to start. How could someone trust him when their first real experience was built on drunken grandstanding? Niall could hardly stand himself.

It would pass, though. It always did.

 

One morning, when Niall ducked into a café to grab a tea for himself and a coffee for the receptionist, he waited in line and, happening to look around at the people seated at the tables, saw Harry staring right at him. If there was any mistaking it, Harry erased that doubt when he waved at Niall. Niall was stunned and a man behind him coughed loudly, making his head snap forward and realize there was space for about three bodies between the person in front of him and Niall himself. Harry waited, he had three small books that, as usual, were either for critiques or his thesis. Niall ambled over carefully when he had his drinks.

“Do you have a moment?” Harry asked, flipping over the book he was reading.

Niall set the cups on the table and sat across from Harry.

“You need to talk to Liam.” Harry said slowly.

“About what? What’s going on?” Niall asked listlessly, trying not to affect anything in his voice. He was plummeting back to that feeling when he woke up in Liam’s bed.

Harry tilted his head, “Well I don’t know. But Liam has been moping around and snapping at everyone way more than usual - Lou and I can’t even _argue_ at the cafe anymore -“ Harry sighed and then closed the book he had flipped over. “I’ve spent every morning this week sitting at different cafés along this road and you finally showed up at this one. That has to count for something.”

Harry reached for Niall’s tea and took a careful sip.

“Hey!”

It was too normal. He should’ve been more irritated by the way Harry helped himself to what was Niall’s, but he wasn’t. They fit. Niall fit with Liam and Louis and Zayn and Harry. Here was the proof, right in front of him. Harry smiled softly behind the lid of the cup and took another sip before putting the cup back down in front of Niall. He sat back in his chair.

“Hasn’t he blocked my number or something by now?”

“That wouldn’t make any sense, he keeps checking his phone, like, every ten minutes. I’m surprised it doesn’t die…” Harry scrunched his eyebrow together, looking lost in thought.

“I’ll text him,” Niall said quietly, after a moment when it was clear that Harry was completely lost in thought.

Harry sighed dramatically. “Good! I’m really late for a meeting with my advisor, I’m really glad you turned up!” He scooped up his books and stood hurriedly.

“You were going to miss a meeting with your advisor to tell me to call Liam?”

“I love my friends.”

Harry said it quickly without having to think about it. It made Niall feel warm, and reminded him of elementary school during recess with old friends he can’t even remember the names of; eternal friendships that lasted 30 minutes, but renewed over and over again throughout the years and through different people. Hasn’t Niall always had these friends? Wasn’t this always the same group after all? Are people really that different, and isn’t that comforting?

Niall loved them all, too.

 

The morning they met was cold, the kind of cold autumn teases out of the world from further away, some place where winter has already come. The wind pushed leaves halfway across the city and streaked pedestrians’ faces with the tears it forced out of their eyes. The sky was covered in clouds. It was ominous, to say the least.

Niall had to slam the door shut to force it closed against the wind. People around the café looked up or back at him, scornfully, as if saying “how could you possibly come _here?_ Today?” They went back to their newspapers and laptops and textbooks quickly enough. Niall wiped his face on the back of his gloves and then tried to scan the room inconspicuously. At the back, Liam was sitting at a small table. His back was to the window of the café and he would have been facing the counter had he been closer to the front. It looked like he hadn’t noticed Niall: he was absorbed by some notebook, probably handwritten, and kept flipping pages back and forth. Niall waited in line for a coffee.

He brought two drip coffees to the table Liam was at, one in a mug and his in a to-go cup. Niall was unsure if Liam would want to hear what he had to say and he didn’t want to just leave his coffee if things went poorly. He could hardly take a full breath by the time he set the coffee down and his cheeks, even though he had warmed up in the cafe and undone his coat, stayed a stunned sort of pink. He waited to sit down.

“Oh, thanks!”

Liam was surprised, caught off guard that Niall was there. He shoved his glasses back up his face absent-mindedly and closed the notebook to scoot the mug in front of him.

“I didn’t know you wore glasses. I have a pair, but I never remember to wear them.”

Niall fidgeted, towering above Liam.

Do you have to go?” Liam said after a long silent moment. He gestured at the to-go cup in Niall’s hand.

“No…no, sorry.”

Niall sat and fixed his hair aimlessly. The tips of his ears were red. _Takes a moment for them to get back to normal,_ he’d say if Liam asked.

“What’s that?” Niall pointed at the notebook beside Liam.

“It’s all the donations for the shop. I’m going over it and seeing…like, basically if it can stay open.” He smiled, nervous but encouraging, saying in its own way not to worry. “It’s not looking too bad. I don’t think…whenever Zayn’s around I gotta have him look at it. I’m not too strong at math.”

Niall popped the lid off of the top of his cup, trying to get it to cool down faster. His hands weren’t cold, but he had them wrapped around the paper cup for something to do with them. He’d have picked apart a seam on his jacket if his nerves had their way; he opted for being a little warmer.

The two of them were silent: Liam was already drinking his coffee, unbothered by the temperature, and glanced at his ledger occasionally like he was trying to figure out that one thing he couldn’t quite grasp. Aside from his glasses, he had on two sweaters layered on top of one another: the one underneath a gray sweatshirt and, on top of that, a lighter maroon one with a pattern a little bit like a cable knit sweater, but it just looked chunky and modern. The mishmash of tops for utility matched him, this kind of get-it-done attitude that seemed buried in his bones - like everything he worked on was the last chance he’d get. Niall hated that he robbed of him of the chance to be good at them. There was a fight inside of him to cry and confess and yell and accuse: how could someone make him feel like this? He was fine, or getting fine, and just seeing him in his stupid sweaters and glasses - of all things - shattered through that, like his anxiety coming from the back of his mind whispering _you miss him you love him you fucked up you fucked up you fucked up -_

“I didn’t mean to use you!” Niall blurted out.

Liam looked a little shocked, “I -“ he started.

Niall shook his head and then dropped his hands into his lap, pressing slightly on his thighs as if he could embolden himself for what he was about to say.

“I don’t…like, I felt like I led you on.”

“Led me on?” Liam’s confusion showed on his face.

“I don’t…I don’t hook up with people. I don’t.”

Niall was staring up at the ceiling. Liam was quiet.

“Wait, are you…do you mean that you…didn’t want to do that? Like at all?”

Niall slowly brought his gaze back to Liam, who looked stricken with alarm and nervousness. He gasped.

“No! Shit, no…not that you, like,” Niall was whispering, “Nothing like that, okay? I wanted to go back to your place, but -“

Liam sat back, recovering like he had heard the news wrong.

“But I don’t care to do that. I’m not really interested in it. In sex.”

Niall was picking at a corner of the table.

“Like, with me?” Liam asked. Niall looked at him slightly exasperated, but slowly shook his head. “Or…okay, like at all?”

Niall kept looking at him, daring himself not to look away. _Don’t make me say it again,_ he thought. He hoped Liam could see that simple truth of it by just looking at him, keeping his eye contact. Like that was the most honest thing Niall could do at that moment. Liam looked away.

“So do you even like me? What are we doing?”

The conversation came sharply into focus for Niall, shattering through an idyllic hope that this - this exact thing - wouldn’t happen.

“Of course I like you.” Niall said, a mixture of volition and desperation in his voice.

“But what’s the point?” Liam shrugged like he was holding a conversation with himself. “I have friends I love - I love Harry and Louis and Zayn - but we’re not…like, we’re not leading one another on. Do you really like me?”

“Of course I like you!” Niall felt panicked, anxiety pulsed through him.

“I don’t need a friend I can…cuddle with, or something. You _are_ just leading me on!” Liam stood up.

“Are you leaving?” Niall stumbled to his feet, nearly knocking the chair out from under him.

Liam had picked up his jacket, but dropped it to his side with his arms, “I thought we were doing good.”

He shook his head, shrugged, and walked out. Niall was nearly crying but paralyzed, unable to leave to find privacy because Liam just did and surrounded by people staring at him. Their argument was louder than they had realized and Niall only heard white noise in his head. Disappearing would be easier than this… _embarrassment,_ this disappointment. This failure he felt burning through his core. He sat back down and drank his coffee, barely cool enough to drink, and took the feeling of the back of his throat being singed over any other feeling pushing through his mind.

 

Niall spent the rest of the week in a quiet haze. It wasn't the first time something like that had happened or the first argument he had heard - he liked to think he wasn’t fragile - but each time it happened he felt stuck through all over again, raw and left over a fire. He could feel himself pull away, this otherness putting a space between him and everyone else; at the worst of it he felt disconnected and even talking with someone was difficult. _You’ll find someone!_ or _for every tenth jerk there’s gonna be that guy who_ gets _you, you know?_ or _he just didn’t value you_ \- all well-meaning, but Niall was tired of hearing it, tired of getting the same deluge of bland support anytime he actually tried. The only thing Niall hears in it all is, _no one can love you like this. How could they?_

  

“What’s the fucking problem?” Zayn asked Liam one morning, early, when they were working alone at CⒶFFEE.

Liam had been moody and confrontational, snapping at customers and friends. Zayn turned off the faucet and left his soapy hands hanging over the sink, but half-turned his body to look at Liam at the espresso machine.

“What?” Liam asked around a shot of pressurized water momentarily drowning out anything else he might’ve said. “There’s no problem.”

“Right, you’re just being an insufferable shit for no reason?”

Liam slammed down the tiny espresso cup he was about to fill.

“Look - it’s just been, like, a shitty week, okay? Am I allowed to have a bad week?”

“Yeah, but you keep to yourself, then. And we’ve all seen you have bad days - it’s not like this. You’re not an asshole.”

Liam stared at him, rubbing the rim of the espresso cup with his thumb.

“I just…I just don’t get, like, Niall.”

“Why are you mad about it, though?”

“I…don’t get it. I thought he liked me.”

“Bro,” Zayn said, wiping his hands off on the dish towel, “He said he did, isn’t that what you told me?”

“Yeah, but -“

“But _nothing,_ then. Why don’t you believe him?”

Liam fidgeted and then leaned against the counter, crossing his arms.

“He doesn’t like sex.”

Liam felt like he was confessing something or, more accurately, like he was telling a secret. Zayn was quiet for a moment and regarded Liam with an impossible-to-guess look; he could always level Liam, a role he had whether he wanted it or not, and could always pierce through his bullshit.

“So?”

Liam was taken aback, “So what?”

“There are plenty of things people don’t like - some people don’t like kissing, some people don’t like splitting the bill for dinner, some don’t like sleeping under the same covers - what the hell’s the difference if he doesn’t want you to stick it in him?’

“Well - isn’t that a big deal? Shouldn’t he want to?”

Zayn looked at him like Liam was the stupidest person he’d ever had to talk to., “No, he shouldn’t. And it’s kind of shitty for you to expect him to.”

Liam blushed slightly and shifted against the counter.

“Okay, but,” he sighed, “how would I, like, _know_ he likes me?” He asked a little quieter.

“For one, you could believe him when he tells you _to your face_ and two, there are other ways, Liam, of showing you he likes you. Relationships, actually, aren’t about sex. Or I guess they don’t have to be.”

Liam kept looking at him like a puppy becoming more and more lost.

“He kissed you, right?”

“Yeah, but…okay, actually I kissed him!”

“No, I mean he wanted to kiss you, right? If you weren’t so gung-ho about everything, he probably would have been the one to kiss you.”

Liam blushed more at that - Niall had brought up kissing him when Liam wasn’t honestly even thinking about it. He started to think he might’ve rushed the whole night with him. But was he too much? Didn’t he ask about everything?

“And anyway,” Zayn continued, “even if _you_ kissed _him_ he still kissed you back, right? Like that was something he did and wanted to do.”

Liam focused on Zayn again instead of his thoughts. He wasn’t really following what Zayn meant by all of this.

“Look,” Zayn said, catching Liam’s confusion, “He didn’t want to fuck you, but he wanted to kiss you. If you need proof for some reason, take that.” Zayn faced the sink and turned on the faucet. “And also that he, you know, _said he fucking likes you to your face._ Take the hints you’re given, bro.”

Liam thought about that and then kept thinking about it long after the coffee shop closed. If he liked Niall, did it require Liam to have to have sex with him? Weren’t there other ways he could show Niall he liked him? Why did he feel compelled to have sex as a demonstration of his feelings? Liam thought about sitting beside Niall at the fire and looking over to see him looking at the ceiling, right after he asked about if their mouths tasted like tequila, and realized he held onto that memory far more vividly than being back at his apartment.

Liam slept terribly that night, plagued by the thought that he had, possibly, fucked up.

  

“You know, you really don’t have to keep bringing me coffee,” the woman at reception told Niall.

“It’s habit now. I already paid for two by the time I realize I did it.” He smiled quaintly.

The sound of the dogs near the back came through faintly, quiet barking and shuffling and some paws against floors or cages or walls. The shelter was a calming place for Niall. It was simpler here with the dogs. Niall mainly just played with them, kept them company; that kind of relationship was therapeutic for him, too - the dogs loved seeing him and they had seemed to have gotten used to him, even expected him. The routine of it all helped the most, slipping back into his old habits. He could almost forget about Liam Payne.

“Oh, someone came in just before you got here and asked about you. He’s back visiting with some dogs…I told him you’d be in soon.”

“Huh. Weird.” Niall widened his eyes at the receptionist, who laughed congenially. “Guess I’ll go say hi…”

Niall dropped his bag off in the break room and then walked through the hallway of rooms where volunteers or potential adopters could interact with dogs one-on-one. The rooms were bright and clinical and uninspiring when the shelter first opened, but they had raised enough donations to furnish the rooms: many of them had carpeting and couches, random toys, some even had blankets. Niall passed the room before the one he liked, the one he got to make changes to and bring in odds and ends that he donated to the shelter to make the room his, and, looking into it as he passed in front of the large window, saw Liam playing with three golden retrievers - or, probably more accurately, three golden retrievers playing with Liam. He was laughing wide-mouthed and lying on his back with the dogs running, jumping, falling over him.

Niall was stunned.

He could feel his heartbeat speed up in a preemptively embarrassed way, the general haze of anxiety started to billow out in his chest. He stood there staring at Liam, overjoyed with these dogs who were even more overjoyed with him, until Liam finally glanced at the window. His smile faltered and then a dog stepped firmly on his stomach, making him recoil with a pained look on his face. Liam stood and opened the door - Niall felt like he saw all of this in slow motion: the last thing he wanted to do was talk to Liam Payne.

“Hi.”

Liam stood in front of the door, a bit away from Niall, and fidgeted with his hands at his sides, moving them behind his back, finally crossing his arms and then, a second later, leaning against the door. The dogs scratched at the door and whined softly, suddenly abandoned by their playmate. Niall swallowed and then felt like his throat was completely dry, like if he tried talking it would come out hoarse and unintelligible. He didn’t feel like he had anything to say, anyway, and then he swallowed again, hardened instead by latent anger; he didn’t owe Liam anything and he shouldn’t have to talk to him. Liam was the one who pushed Niall away, not the other way around.

“What are you doing here?” Niall asked brusquely.

“I figured you wouldn’t answer any of my texts. I wanted to talk.”

“Great for you. Please leave.”

“Would you please just, like, let me say what I want to say?” Liam looked wounded. “I practiced a whole thing. A speech or whatever.”

Niall crossed his arms. “A speech?” Liam nodded the smallest nod Niall had ever seen. “Are you serious?”

“Look, I’m not good at talking, not really. I just say…the first thing that comes into my head. I don’t really think about it. I mean, unless I prepare it. I can give really good speeches.”

Liam was practically pleading at this point, wringing his hands and gesturing along with what he was saying. The dogs were still whining. Niall caught sight of them out of the corner of his eye, sitting in front of the window and staring back and forth between the two of them like it were a tennis match.

“Let’s go in,” he said, gesturing to the door Liam was standing beside. “Otherwise they’re gonna go crazy.”

Liam was surrounded, pushed on all sides immediately, and slowly moved into the room with the golden retrievers glued to his legs. Niall sat on the couch and pulled his knees in as much out of comfort as a way to stop his leg from shaking nervously. Why did he agree to let him talk? What could he possibly say? Wasn’t Niall embarrassed enough?

“Look,” Liam said, still surrounded by dogs pawing at his legs, “what I said was really shitty. You just grow up with this, like, expectation of how things are suppose to go and what means what, and I just freaked out, I guess? I really like you and when you…said all that, I didn’t know what it meant. I felt like you couldn’t like me, like…all that,” Liam vaguely gestured, “was required. Or something.”

“How do you think I felt?” Niall asked quietly, staring the dogs.

“That’s what I thought about last night. I talked to Zayn -” Niall snapped his head up, looking at him accusingly, “No, look - he called me an idiot, more or less said I’d wasted, like, an opportunity…” Liam faltered, blushing slight. He cleared his throat. “And, anyway, I get now that it was really shitty of me to, like, expect all that from you. I shouldn't be with you - or anyone - just to fuck around. Not if I really like them, right? Not if I want to be with them.”

“You can sleep around if you want, Liam. You just can’t do it with me. What you said was really, really awful.” Niall put his feet back on the ground. “I can’t - I’m not going to have sex just to prove I like someone. I’m not ever. And if that’s a requirement for you, then it would’ve been nice if you could’ve been…nicer about it.”

Niall picked at the seam on his knee, already frayed from nervous fidgeting.

“I’m sorry.”

Niall sighed. “Are you done?”

“I…want to be with you?” Liam said, the confusion painting every word and paining his face.

Niall nodded barely perceptibly. “Yeah, but, I mean…” He sighed again. “I don’t know if I really want to be with you anymore.”

“What?”

“I shouldn’t have to wait around to be valued. And you’re right: you shouldn’t have expected that from me. But,” Niall stood, “you don’t get to just show up and say some shit and, like, have me fall for you again.”

Liam’s demeanor dropped; even the dogs quieted, like they were being scolded. He looked almost pleadingly at Niall and then sad, looking down at the golden retrievers around him.

“I really like you. And what you said really sucked. It took me forever to even feel angry about it and…I don’t know if you get a second chance. I don’t know if I want one.”

Liam started and stopped protesting multiple times and Niall waited, seemingly patiently, for him to say anything. Instead, Liam petted one of the dogs around him sheepishly.

“I have to go to work,” Niall said, starting for the door.

“Why did you try to sleep with me?” Liam asked quietly.

“I thought you would be different. I really like you.” Niall was still facing the door. “That was fucked up, that’s what I was trying to apologize for before. Most of the time I feel like…like I’m the one who’s wrong. Like I’m broken or something.” Niall was quiet for a moment, intensifying the silence that was already between the two of them. “But I don’t want to give someone a second chance who made me feel like that. It’s bad enough on my own.”

Niall left. The golden retrievers were laying around Liam’s feet, no longer trying to play with him.

 

Niall had a gallery opening on a Friday night - his own opening: picked the date, the theme, the artists, their works - and, after spending nearly all day double- and triple-checking all of the details, he barely made it home in time to change and get back to the gallery. He had a suit, handed down from his father who was his height but a little bigger and tailored (the expense he saved for and committed to after being hired by the gallery), that he wore for the first time that night, for the first show he organized. His father was proud of him and he wanted to look as confident about the night as he felt.

“How’s everything?” Niall asked one of the admin employees who volunteered.

“It’s fine,” she said, touching Niall’s forearm. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s possible for anything to go wrong. You organized everything down to the bone. No one may even have any fun!”

Niall laughed at her joke; it caught him off guard. He was nervous now that he was here, the confidence he built up while he dressed was quickly overwhelmed by a fear of _what if no one likes it? What if nothing sells?_ He loved organizing the show and didn’t want to lose the chance to do more if his first failed.

He relaxed, though, with a beer from the cash bar and guests gradually coming in. People lingered and talked, an hour passed and paintings started to sell; Niall felt his confidence swell again. Behind him, near the door, someone was calling “Neil,” saying it more loudly each time. Suddenly a hand clapped onto his shoulder.

“Neil! I’ve been saying your name, man!”

Niall turned around and saw Louis beaming at him with a grin that could only be bad sign.

“It’s Niall.” He said, somewhere between offended and bewildered.

“Sure, Neil. This is pretty good.” Louis said, looking around the gallery.

“How do you all know where I am, like, all the time?”

“We don’t.” Louis gave Niall a look. “That would be weird.”

Niall waited for an answer. They - all of them - always seemed just to _show up_.

“Look, there were flyers around. The gallery practically covered the block with the ads for this!”

Niall blushed slightly. He had insisted on aggressively advertising: the exhibit was all local artists so, Niall thought, even if no one bought anything it should at least be support by the local community. It had worked a little too well.

“And, well, Liam said you worked at a gallery. Thought I might see if this one’s yours.”

“It is.” Niall raised his bottle of beer in a mock cheers.

Louis stuck around, pestering Niall with small talk: inconsequential conversations about how the weather had been, a new restaurant opening. He led into questions about the artists, finally, which Niall was more than happy to answer since this was the reason for the night, but that was a ruse, though Niall didn’t fall for it; Louis sighed in the middle of an exposition for one of the artist’s theme - something about mixed media and cultural diffusion - and interrupted Niall.

“Are you going to ask about Liam?”

Niall rolled his eyes. _“No._ Why would I?”

“Probably because if you did, I’d tell you he hasn’t _stopped_ beating himself up about all of…whatever is going on. He feels awful and I don’t even know why. I told him to get over you, you probably weren’t worth it -“ Niall grimaced at him. “Hey! What else am I supposed to say? I’m trying to be a good friend! Anyway, he won’t stop moping around and - god, it’s fucking annoying, okay? Can you just, like, take him to dinner or something?”

“I already talked to him. It’s not my problem.”

Niall finished the last gulp of his beer and turned to get another from the bar. Louis put his hand on his arm, causing Niall to look at him.

“Please,” Louis said gently. “He keeps saying he fucked up and I don’t know what it is, but I really hope it’s not something you can’t forgive him for.”

Louis looked almost wounded, filled with concern and clearly trying so hard.

“Does Liam know you’re here?”

“No.” Louis shook his head and then laughed once. “Do you think he sent me?” He asked incredulously.

Niall was speechless, caught off-guard by how devious he thought Liam could be, devious enough to use his friends like that. He walked to the bar and got a new beer, and then went back to Louis.

“He didn’t tell you what happened?”

“No. I don’t know if it really matters, does it? I mean…you either like him or you don’t and anything complicating that can either be figured out or it can’t.”

Niall laughed, smiling widely. The beer buzzed at the back of his head.

“Is it that simple?” He asked.

“I don’t know…might be. I think I’ve been with Harry too long to know.” Louis smiled mischievously.

“I don’t…I think I scared myself off. And - did he tell you what he said in the coffee shop?”

“No. I don’t know _anything._ He’s really embarrassed about all of this. Like, about himself.”

“He said some shit. That I guess I don’t know if I want to get over. I shouldn’t, I don’t think. I shouldn’t get over it.”

“Sometimes people _do_ just make mistakes, you know? I can’t believe Harry’s forgiven me as many times as he has…he should be a fucking saint after he’s dead. I can be really petty, especially with him. But I think, for him and me, it’s just that I know him, you know? Like I _know_ him. If I’m having a bad day I know just what to say to put him in that mood, too.”

Niall looked at him with dismay.

“Misery loves company, right?”

“Hmm.”

Niall looked around the gallery: the crowd had thinned a bit since he had been talking to Louis and the beer in his hand was low. It was a good turnout and there were noticeably fewer paintings on the wall than when he had seen everything hung just before they opened. He felt good. Hopeful, maybe, even.

“When do you close?” Louis asked.

“Oh,” Niall turned back toward Louis and then fished his phone out of his pants pocket. “In about two hours. I guess maybe earlier if everyone leaves.”

“Well, I have to go. Meeting the boys at Liam’s for a sort of family dinner.”

Louis stood and waited; Niall didn’t say anything.

“Right,” Niall said suddenly. “Have a good night. Thanks for…seeing the show.”

“Yeah. You should come by after you finish up here. We stay late, have some drinks, you know…so, you should come get a drink. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Niall said slowly. How could Louis invite him over? So casually? Niall knew, though, it wasn’t casual at all.

“Okay. Bye.” Louis waved while he walked out of the gallery.

 

It was winter and, despite Niall’s wool coat and gloves, he felt cold down to his bones; the wind seemed to cut through him as if he weren’t wearing a coat at all. The gallery was a block further than the animal shelter from CⒶFFEE and that night made the walk feel endless. Niall’s pace slowed and he almost turned and went back to his apartment countless times, not really helping the length of the journey. His mind raced; anxieties pulsed through his nervous system - a Petri dish of accelerated chemical reactions coursing through his entire body  blooming and draining heat from his muscles, leaving his fingers numb; thought process speeding off in thousands of different directions. _What am I doing?_ He thought relentlessly. His legs carried him through the streets despite his rampant protests and he found himself standing in that desolate yard facing an oddly off-the-ground door and dirty windows that barely let the light from inside escape out.

He was here, though, and so he knocked.

No one answered, though Niall could hear them inside and guessed they couldn’t hear him knocking. Testing the doorknob, he walked in after he found it unlocked. The coffee shop was loud, boisterous with four voices filling the empty space, yelling over one another and laughing raucously. They were in the larger room beside the kitchen, probably meant to be a dining room but now littered with the small café tables usually occupied by patrons. Niall gingerly made his way through the foyer and found the four of them sitting around three of the tables pushed together, Louis, Harry, and Zayn sitting at the table facing the entryway Niall went through and only Liam facing the kitchen door. The room fell silent immediately.

“I’ll be honest,” Louis sad, “I didn’t think you’d show up.”

Liam turned around to look at whom Louis was talking to and his face fell suddenly, stopping just before looking like a completely heartbroken disaster. Niall noticed - for the first time, really - how big and dopey Liam’s eyes could get; how completely an honest-at-the-surface kind of person Liam was - they weren’t eyes to swim in, they weren’t deep and soulful. Liam was hardly capable of hiding his emotions or talking around how he felt. He wasn’t shallow, though, Niall realized: everything with him was out in the open, all of the good and the bad. He realized how much it meant when Liam had gone out of his way to apologize, how big it was of him to try and course-correct what he thought and felt. Niall felt a small burn at the pit of his stomach, something like forgiveness trying to force itself up and out of his mouth.

“Can I talk to you, Liam?” Niall asked.

“If you mean to do it in private,” Zayn interjected immediately. “You can say whatever it is in front of us.”

Harry shrugged and Louis crossed his arms. Niall took a shaky breath, unprepared for an audience - unprepared for any of it, honestly. Liam was looking at the ground and he was making small, fast bounces with his knee. Niall’s cheeks flushed pink, matching the pink at the tip of his nose from the cold weather. He shifted his weight, trying to think of what to say and how to say it. Liam turned his eyes up, looking at him, without lifting his head up.

“Okay, I…this has never worked. I mean dating’s never been good for me, right? Like…” Niall felt flustered trying to explain something he could hardly even conceptualize himself. “It’s hard, I think, and I don’t ever know if it’s me or the other guy, but..I guess it just became easier to always make it that other guy. I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m right or wrong or, to be honest…I’m not sure I know how to be, like, ‘good’ at all of this. And I don’t know if people can be or you would be and I don’t think I am and -“

“Jesus, I haven’t heard someone ramble like this since Liam tried telling us about the coffee shop,” Louis said, rolling his eyes and sighing.

Niall flushed from embarrassment and stood with his mouth half open. Liam had lifted his head and had been listening; he glanced at Louis with an irritated look on his face. They all sat in silence for a moment and then Niall composed himself, finding his footing with an annoyed countenance.

“Shit, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know if you fucked up or if I fucked up or if we both did, but I’m sorry. Too, I think.”

Niall shifted his weight from leg to leg, feeling uncomfortable under their scrutiny, like he was at some panel or in front of some judges trying to get parole.

“Louis, you’re such a dick,” Zayn said. “I thought it was a great speech.”

“Just because you’re saying it and you don’t sound mean doesn’t mean you aren’t actually being mean, Zayn,” Harry said.

Zayn smirked, imperceptibly, but the entire table started laughing.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Liam asked, standing.

“Yeah, I really do. Fuck you, Louis,” Niall said, laughing.

  

They went slowly. Liam took his time with Niall and Niall tried to be honest with himself and Liam. Their relationship bloomed slowly and more wholly than it had started: Liam found nuances about Niall and how he could fit around his life, embrace him - all of him - into his world. Niall found the same, allowing himself to be open to the comfort and intimacy Liam offered. They were a supernova billions of lightyears off, brilliant and promising. Hopeful.

One night, Liam woke up filled with worry, as if his body had shaken him awake to deal with an imaginary problem that Liam didn’t even know about. His eyebrows were furrowed and he was sitting at the edge of the bed with Niall asleep beside him. Liam was plagued by thoughts of Niall..or, that wasn’t how it felt, at all, but Liam didn’t have the words: he was worried, but not about him and not about them - maybe about himself? Liam worried he wasn’t loving him right and that he wouldn’t ever figure it out. He couldn’t sleep: what if he was ruining it all over again?

“Hey, what’s the matter?”

Niall rolled onto his side to face him, seeing his hunched back tense a bit when he asked. Niall was full of sleep, though, and pawed at the air.

“Come back to me. Come on.” Niall found his wrist.

Liam sank back onto the bed and rolled with Niall, who switched to his other side. Liam fit against him, the curve of his knees going into the back of Niall’s knees, his chest coming to Niall’s shoulders. Niall pulled Liam’s wrist over his side and onto his stomach: Liam felt his calm, slow breathing and it calmed his own breathing down.

Liam felt himself soften and, maybe, he felt like everything was fine. Like he really was just being foolish, stupid for letting that worry wake him up.


End file.
